Adler Lackwerk with new modern wastewater treatment
Adler has installed a new, modern wastewater system at its Austrian paint plant in Schwaz. It was built in the environmental protection and recycling center, which was put into operation by Adler in the 1990s and has been continuously adapted to the current state of the art.
Container and container cleaning, separation of recyclable materials and exhaust air treatment: all processes relating to environmental management come together at Adler's Environmental Protection and Recycling Center (URZ). At the heart of the URZ is the wastewater treatment plant: all wastewater generated during paint development and production as well as during the cleaning of containers and work equipment is collected and treated here. "Adler now manufactures more than two thirds of all products on a water basis, the production volume has multiplied since the 1990s and is set to increase further. Sooner or later, our existing plant would have reached its capacity limits," explains Dr. Albert Rössler, Head of Research & Development. In order to create scope for future growth, the URZ was therefore equipped with a new, high-performance wastewater treatment plant.
New, more efficient Adler wastewater treatment plant
The new plant not only has a significantly higher capacity, but the quality and efficiency of wastewater treatment has also increased: "All paint components are filtered out of the wastewater using complex chemical and physical processes," explains Thomas Klausner, Head of Adler's operating technology. "With our new plant, we can further improve the quality of these processes." This means that the already very high degree of purity of the wastewater is increased, the disposal quantities are significantly reduced and the quantity of chemicals used for the cleaning process is more than halved. Fresh water requirements are also reduced, as some of the treated wastewater is reused for internal processes. And finally, the employees in the Environmental Protection and Recycling Center team also benefit: "The new system is completely digitally controlled and can be conveniently operated from a computer. For us, this means less time, fewer sources of error and improved ergonomics," explains URZ manager Alfred Pernik. The implementation of the project, in which Adler invested 1.6 million euros, was challenging. On the one hand, the system had to be dimensioned to fit the available space, and on the other, the conversion had to be carried out during ongoing operations. For this purpose, a temporary facility was installed as an interim solution, and the construction time was reduced to just a few months thanks to thorough preparation.